Mass murder in Chiapas

EXAMINER EDITORIAL WRITER

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, December 30, 1997

1997-12-30 04:00:00 PDT MEXICO -- MEXICAN President Ernesto Zedillo has earned much goodwill abroad by accepting the need for political reform, even if his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) loses some of its monopolistic power. He seemed to be the national leader most likely to settle the four-year-old insurgency of poor Indians in the southern state of Chiapas with a measure of fairness to a long-exploited people.

Zedillo's international reputation is on the line in the aftermath of last week's massacre of 45 villagers - mostly women and children - by a paramilitary group said to be supportive of the PRI and opposed to the Zapatista uprising in that region. Investigation of the atrocity by the Mexican Attorney General's office has resulted in arrests of 41 persons, including a regional official who has been charged with murder and supplying high-caliber weapons used in the attack.

Both the victims and the gunmen were described as Tzotzil Indians indigenous to the area, and a PRI report of the killings ascribed the violence to a family feud. One grim reality seems to be that helpless people in a number of isolated communities were intimidated and subjected to extortion for months by paramilitary thugs, possibly helped by officials waging a proxy Indian-vs.-Indian campaign against the Zapatista National Liberation Army. Local and state police failed unforgivably to head off the killings or stop them once the first shooting was reported.

Since the massacre in Acteal, some 3,000 residents of exposed villages in the vicinity have been evacuated to the town of Polho to protect them from paramilitary attacks. The Mexican army should act immediately to rout the remaining thugs, and it should stay in the area as long as is necessary to assure the future safety of the villagers under a revamped local administration.

A big question is whether Jacinto Aria Cruz, municipal president of Chenalho now charged with murder, is the highest-ranking PRI office-holder involved in the outrage. Zedillo should realize that, with the Zapatistas making the most of their international following, no cover-up can go unexposed for long. If higher-ups are among the guilty, bring them to account without delay. And peace talks with the Zapatistas, broken off a year ago, should be resumed promptly.

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